religions Article
Theodicy, Undeserved Suffering, and Compassionate Solidarity: An Interdisciplinary Reading of Hwang Sok-Yong’s The Guest Young Hoon Kim Graduate School of Theology, Sogang University, Seoul 04107, Korea; yhkimsj@gmail.com Received: 3 August 2020; Accepted: 9 September 2020; Published: 10 September 2020
Abstract: The author explores theological questions regarding the Korean novelist Hwang Sok-yong’s The Guest from interdisciplinary perspectives. This paper analyzes the novel in relation to the emotional complex of han as understood in Korean minjung theology, the political theology of Johann Baptist Metz, and Ignacio Ellacuría’s liberation theology. Drawing upon the perspectives of Korean, German, and Latin American scholars, this approach invites us to construct a discourse of theodicy in a fresh light, to reach a deeper level of theodical engagement with the universal problem of suffering, and to nurture the courage of hope for human beings in today’s stressed world. Contemplating the concrete depiction of human suffering in The Guest, the paper invites readers to deepen their understanding of God in terms of minjung theology’s thrust of resolving the painful feelings of han of the oppressed, Metz’s insight of suffering unto God as a sacramental encounter with God, and Ellacuría’s idea of giving witness to God’s power of the resurrection in eschatological hope. The paper concludes that the immensity of today’s human suffering asks for that compassionate solidarity with the crucified today which can generate hope in the contemporary milieu. Keywords: han; hope; Hwang-sok Yong; liberation theology; minjung theology; political theology; The Guest; theodicy
1. Introduction In a General Audience, Pope Francis earnestly invited all the people of God to pray for an inter-Korean summit on the occasion of the historic meeting between Moon Jae-in, the president of the Republic of Korea, and Kim Jong-un, the leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (Pope Francis 2018). The Pope prayed with all the people of God in this short appeal for Korea “to build a better future” and “to have the courage of hope” that is “for the good of all.” As this article was being written, the tension on the Korean Peninsula was still increasing due to sociopolitical uncertainties, just as it had been for seventy years since the Korean War in 1950. “As this peculiar situation has continued for 60 years, South Koreans have reluctantly become accustomed to a taut and contradictory sensation of indifference and tension” (Han 2017). Of course, many people all over the world need “the courage of hope.” Both personal and collective suffering is rife in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Syria, and many other places. In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the victims of war are particularly vulnerable to being treated unjustly. We are all tempted to become accustomed to the suffering of others, comforting them with cheap theological notions, or we simply turn our eyes away. Pope Francis thus speaks of “the globalization of indifference”: we forget “how to weep” and “how to experience compassion—suffering with others” (Pope Francis 2013a). As a specific example of the courage of hope in the midst of human suffering, this article focuses on the pain experienced in the Korean War of the 1950s as recounted in the 2001 Korean novel The Guest.
Religions 2020, 11, 463; doi:10.3390/rel11090463
www.mdpi.com/journal/religions